


Did You Get What You Wanted?

by viceversa



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt, Post-Episode: s04e23 Demons, Post-Episode: s05e02 Redux II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceversa/pseuds/viceversa
Summary: Inside Mulder's brain after, well, a host of traumas.





	Did You Get What You Wanted?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cryptidneet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptidneet/gifts).



_“Fox! Wake up! Fox!!"_

It was the same as before - way before.

_“Fox!”_

His mother on the couch. His sister, screaming, terrified.

_“I’m afraid Fox! I’m afraid!”_

He knew it was a dream - or was it a memory? - and he was too terrified to wake up. He had to escape. He had to – no, he had to stay and find out the truth. But this was a dream, not a memory.

How did he know it was a dream? The last time he saw these images and flashes, heard these words in his head, he woke up covered in blood. He seized, he hurt. He couldn’t conceptualize that memory in the midst of a dream, but his terror grew and his mind shut down. He couldn’t wake up. God, the screaming.

_“Fox!”_

His heart beat sped up, too fast, too loud. It defeated him, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t _breathe_. This was just a nightmare, right? It wasn’t real, right? They may be his memories, or maybe not - but they shouldn’t be haunting him like this.

_“Not Samantha! My baby!”_

Wasn’t this supposed to be over? No more seizures, no more memories or lies in his brain. No more Scully, worried, hovering, just wanting to help. No more Scully with that look of disappointment in her eyes. This was terror, no escape.

The scene changed to a dark hallway. He felt like he was being chased, but he couldn’t move faster than a walk. His footsteps echoed, louder and louder, but he wasn’t getting closer. His heartbeat. The flashes - bright white, blinding red. He ran.

_“I am your mother, and I will not tolerate any more of your questions!”_

There was no time to process the events of his recent life. He’d heard nothing from his mother after he stormed from her house, uncaring in her regard. Blaming him for his father’s death. The experimental tests, the trip to Quonochontaug, the seizures - they were all distant memories compared to what they’d just been through.

 _“Mulder._ ”

He killed a man in his apartment, he had to fake his own death, search for the truth. The truth. The truth he couldn’t get through holes in his skull, through the torture of Dr. Goldstein.

A gun, cold and heavy in his hand. He was going to kill himself. He was going to kill Scully.

_“Mulder, please! Wake up!”_

Cancer. Scully had cancer. She was dying - and he was going to die, too, but then they made it. The chip cured her. She was alive. Scully was alive, somewhere outside of this damn hallway. When would it end? Why we’re all the doors locked? What was chasing him? He couldn’t hear himself think, he couldn’t manage a full breath. Just stop! Turn around and _stop_!

“Mulder!”

Scully.

She was there, right there, right in front of him in this room. Room? Where were they? How did he -

“You were having a nightmare, Mulder. Are you okay?”

There was that look again; the look of concern, worry, disappointment.

“I’m - I think so.” Mulder looked around, trying to discern where they were. It hit him like a knee to the stomach. He felt sick. They were back in Quonochontaug. Why?

“Mulder, I thought this was over.” Scully began pacing, her black turtleneck and black pants blending into the black room, only the pale skin on her face and hands standing out. She gestured, one of frustration, at him. At the room.She thought what was over? His nightmares? _God, Scully_ , he thought. They would never leave him. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.

“You have to take better care of yourself, Mulder.”

Why were they back at this house?

“Mulder, pay attention to me!”

He almost killed her here. Almost killed himself. And for what? What grand answers did he receive being so self-sacrificing? Even that hadn’t dissuaded him. He’d left Scully, gone back for more. Now he was at that damn house again. He was so confused.

“Why are we here, Scully?”

A flash, the lights, the lights he couldn’t escape, his hands strapped down. The noises, the drill - he could still hear the whir drill even though the sounds through his headphones.

_I have to exorcize my demons._

Quonochontaug. Memories would’ve come back even without treatment but, then he’d, God. He’d almost done the unthinkable. He’d almost killed her before the cancer had its chance. Why were they back? He would never go back.

“Mulder!”

Her voice, frustrated, exasperated, drew him back out of his head.

“Yeah, Scully?”

“Did you get what you wanted?”

She gestured around them, at the dark bedroom they were in, in the room he’d almost killed them both in. What did he want? The truth, answers. He wanted to know the fate of Samantha, of his family. He wanted to know _why_. Did he get what he wanted?  No.

Jesus, he’d almost killed her, painted the walls with her blood, with his, in the pursuit of unknowable answers, and now they were back? He’d never wanted to see this house again. He’d wanted to burn it down.

And now Scully was asking him this. Of course he didn’t get what he had wanted then. But Scully was alive now. He felt one step closer to whatever truths were out there for him, and she was by his side.

“Did you get what you wanted?”

Once again, he self-destructed in the face of maybe, _maybe_ , getting a little closer. He had hurt Scully by hurting himself. He drew a gun on her, again. He barely remembered, but he remembered that part. It played over and over in his head, each time he closed his eyes. Each time he opened them. There she was. Pleading. Horrified.

_“Put down the gun, Mulder. Let it go.”_

Let it go? He couldn’t let it go! The pursuit of his truth, his past, it was vital to his future! It was all the more important to search now, to search before Scully died. Maybe his truth could help her, could save her from death. She deserved to live, take him instead. He’d give anything.

_“Are you gonna shoot me, Mulder? Is that how much this means to you?”_

“You mean everything to me, Scully.”

“Did you get what you wanted?” She was exasperated. Mad. Her eyes changed. That look – that look of concern fled. She was angry.

He searched the room, looking for clues, for answers. It was dark. Everything was in shadow. Over there, he’d crouched with a gun in his hand. Over there, Scully had stood. Target practice.

What did she mean? Why was she still asking, why were they here in his house? What happened? He looked back to Scully, but she wasn’t there.

He twisted, looking around the room, but the room wasn’t there, it was a hallway with a door, a door right in front of him. He opened it.

_Oh, God, no._

Scully was dying. She was in her hospital bed. She was trapped in her own diseased body, with cancer cells eating her up. Her cheekbones were prominent, her hair limp. Her collarbones cast shadows, skin stretched over bone.

_“Put down the gun Mulder! Are you going to shoot me?”_

Scully was going to die and he’d done nothing to help her. He couldn’t stop it. He caused it. The irrepressible weight of dread settled over his chest as he looked at her. She was going to die and it was his fault.

He was too late. He killed her, killed her with his futile search, his relentless need to risk everything for the answers he so desperately craved.

And look at what it got him. What it got her - her life, cut short, the last years of it spent in pain and torture, her sister dead, her mother and brothers in pain and constant mourning.

_“Did you get what you wanted?”_

A shrill beep cut through the deafening silence. He tore his eyes from Scully and saw it. Flatline. Scully died, right in front of him. She was killed, a cancer behind her eyes, a partnership so toxic it caused her body to kill itself.

_“No!”_

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Scully wasn’t supposed to _die_. No. No no no, he found the cure, the alien chip. The chip! He had to buy time, he had to - no, why weren’t they starting CPR? Why was she alone, where were the doctors? Her mother? Why were they letting her die?

No cure, there was no cure, there is no cure – she died – Scully is _dead_.

_“Did you get what you wanted?”_

She was dead and so was he, not now but soon. It felt like he couldn’t breathe but he could, he could and she wouldn’t ever breathe again, her chest still under the thin hospital gown. She was pure white, still and fragile as porcelain.

He would kill himself and feel the worst about it because it would make her death worthless, for nothing, but what right did he have to take another breath while she didn’t? What answers were truly within his reach? What would make her death _worth it?_

Nothing. He’d eat his own gun instead. He was too selfish to stay in this world and suffer, to face Maggie Scully.

_“Did you get what you wanted?”_

Where was his gun? It should be on him. God, he couldn’t breathe, he didn’t want to, he needed his gun. Scully. Scully was dead, he was home, he was searching, fuck, where was it? Why couldn’t he die too? Why couldn’t he follow her, at least to the pearly fucking gates to say goodbye as she was given access and he was sent to hell where he belonged?

He didn’t want to exist anymore. He wanted to go back in time, make Scully leave before it was all too late. He killed her. He killed her with his own stubbornness. Where was his gun? It should be on his dresser but it wasn’t!

He’d never tell her that he loved her. That he loved her so much it hurt, it ripped him apart, to see her smile. That a sly glance or laugh made his ribs ache, made his arms jump as he kept them from wrapping around her, gathering her to him. He’d never live to see her pained smile and hear her sweet rejection of “Oh, Mulder, I love you too, you’re my _best_ friend,” because how could a best friend murder the love of his life?

_“Did you get what you wanted?”_

He wanted Scully. Scully was gone forever.

_“Scully!”_

Mulder woke himself with his screams.

He _was_ home, but he wasn’t digging through his closet for his gun. In fact, his gun was just where he left it on his dresser, next to his badge and wallet.

He was panting. His sheets were thrown across the bed, some on the floor. He was soaked in sweat, and he hurt everywhere.

Scully. Scully was okay. She was alive, she was recovering from cancer, she was in her bed asleep at her home across the city. She was far away from him, she was safe, she was alive - wasn’t she?

Blindly, he grabbed his phone and called her, perched on the edge of his bed. He’d need to change the sheets. He couldn’t think about that right now, he had to talk to her. He had to catch his breath.

He should tell her to quit, tell her she was fired, that he never wanted to see her again. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know what to say.

He knew exactly what he _wanted_ to say.

The phone was on its fifth ring when he made his decision. Even if she did pick up, which was looking unlikely, he needed to see her. Now. If only for visual evidence that she was alive, for physical proof of her continuing existence in his world.

A flash from his nightmare hit him, the image of her in the hospital gown, still and skeletal. It overlaid his memory from reality too well. Just a few weeks ago she was at death’s door, about to knock.

But she had lived. She had lived, despite Mulder’s existence. He’d done one, _one_ thing right - he got her the chip. It was literally the least he could do. Save her life, the life he put in danger. He would’ve ripped the organs from his body to see her smile again, to give her another day.

It may have been his fault, everything horrible that had happened to her, but he was still the selfish, stubborn man he’d always been and he’d never change.

Mulder was out the door two minutes later, pants half zipped, no socks, his keys in his teeth as he threw a shirt over his head. He had to see Scully, talk to her.

_“Did you get what you wanted?”_

Not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> 👽👽👽happy birthday audrey!!! 👽👽👽


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